Month: December 2019

Parasite: A Journey Through International Cinema

When you think of the word “parasite” I don’t think that the first image that comes to mind is a highly rated international thriller. I can say that was the case for me, but form now on, this film will cross my mind whenever I hear that word. This was a film directed by Bong Joon Ho and lucky enough for me it was being shown at the Gateway Theater right here in Columbus. I didn’t know what to expect when going to see this film, but it was most defile thy worth every dime spent on the ticket.

To start, this film is about two families; the Park and Kim clans. The Park family is very wealthy and they live this perfect life in a large modern mansion with nice staff and even nicer cars. The Kim family, however, is struggling to make ends meet as they do anything to get free wi-fi or make money to keep themselves afloat. The world of these two families collides when the only son in the Kim family, Ki-woo, is asked to tutor the only daughter of the Park family, Da-Hye. After the Kim family realizes how much money Ki-woo is making as a tutor, they begin to devise plans to take all of the jobs that Park’s family is offering, even if the jobs are currently filled. There was no length too long for the Kim family and in the end, everything came to an explosive conclusion.

While the film was very interesting to watch, some messages and themes relate much more to the international community than the plot of the film itself. The idea of class discrimination is evident and is a source of tension in many countries. In the film, it is obvious how the Park family treats the people they hire to work for them. They would belittle them, yell at them, and even made fun of the way they smell. They treated them as inferior to themselves simply because they don’t have tons of money. This concept is evident everywhere from the grossly wealthy in the U.S who have everything and then others who are living under the poverty line with almost nothing. This brings attention to this issue and shows that the wealth gap needs to be managed to help bring those who are less fortunate up and help them live better lives. This idea also goes into the concept of greed. Simply because the Kim family is poor does not excuse their actions that where driven by greed. They took the jobs of other people who needed them too. They wrote out scripts and rehearsed plans and were meticulous down to every last detail. This kind of planning is manipulative and on some level slightly insane. In this case, greed led to murder and the destruction of two whole families.

The themes from this film and many others, where they are domestic or international, show that we all go through the same experiences and have similar problems. It shows that since we have similar issues, working together to solve them is in the best interest of everyone while letting them just continue on freely will lead to more pain in the future. If you ever get the chance to view parasite or a film like it, I would take the opportunity to so. Some of the best films we will ever see are ones made in other countries, so take the time to watch one. Sit down, grab some popcorn, turn on the subtitles, and enjoy an international film, I promise you won’t regret it.

The Political Situation in Bolivia

All over the world, there is political unrest whether it is in Hong Kong or Bolivia. Politics can be a tinder box and in these situations, it tends to explode all at once and the response can be disastrous. This post will focus on the current political situation in Bolivia that I had the chance to learn about in a very in-depth and informative session last week.

The first part of the presentation was background information about what led up to up to the political unrest as well as the development of the situation in the days and weeks before the session. The presenter said that a preliminary report of the election indicated that the current and re-elected President, Evo Morales, was given his office in a fraudulent election. There was civic rebellion at this news pushing for his ouster from office and others pushing for him to remain in power. Morales gave a speech in which he reinstated the TSE (Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Bolivia) and called for a new election. This did little to calm the upheaval. Under mounting, pressure members of the MAS (Movement for Socialism) party began resigning from their position in the Bolivian government. In recent events, the right applauded the resignation of MAS members and Morales himself from office. With Morales out of the picture, there was an irregular appointment of the new interim president, Jeanine Anez Chavez, as well as strong military repression of the protesters.

The second half of the presentation was a timeline of events from 2016 to the most recent events that were occurring in Bolivia. February 21, 2016, was when Morales was allowed to be a candidate for President by a referendum supported by the Constitutional Courts of Bolivia. Protests were then held in defense of the referendum. In the fall of 2019 former president and now presidential candidate Carlos Mesa said that he would not recognize the election of Morales to office. On October 21st there were indicated protests protesting Morale’s victory. On October 25th Morales threatened to put fences around cities to stomp out the protests. Some of the first causalities of the protests occurred on October 30th. On November 6th the protesters began to clash. All of these events and pressures led to Morales seeking exile in Mexico on November 13th. By the 18th there were total food and fuel shortages in cities, most notably La Paz. There also was a criminal complaint filed against Morales for alleged terrorism.

This was such an interesting session and it gave me a much better understanding of what was going on in Bolivia. I learned specific details and background information that not many new articles cover so it was an eye-opening experience. I would recommend everyone attend at least one event like this in their lifetime because it’s so enlightening and makes you a more informed global citizen.